Business matters most
The outcome of the fair indicated that medium-to-top level spinning industry is doing well and knitwear companies that structured and adapted to buyers’ demands are not overly concerned by a slowdown in the sector. Spinners and knitwear manufacturers adjust their production to fit the needs of global markets, with brands that also have to re-adjust their positioning and strategy.
Chinese visitors totalled 8,049, a stable number compared to March 2015, and foreign visitors were 2,049, a progression of 32 per cent over the March session. Hong Kong showed a high progression with 638 visitors compared to 373 for the March session. Europe showed a slightly higher number of visitors with 318 versus 252 for the former show.
Spinexpo continues to screen the potential VIPs among its visitors and owing to the work conducted by its promotion offices, is now able to upgrade Chinese companies as well as brands from outside China. The fair continued to renovate presenting trend information, slowly moving away from swatches displayed by colour stories to more focus on yarn categories, uses and their performance.
Zones, programs set the trend
Divided into three zones, the main trend area started with an in-depth active wear presentation, covering shoes, socks, and active sport starting with a soft dance/yoga section, on to endurance and performance. This part of the trend area showed visitors how to start with a yarn, go through the machinery process and end up with the finished product with the accurate explanation from the stylist Eva De Laat, in cooperation with Santoni at their Shanghai Centre.
The partnership between machinery, spinner and stylist is a direction that Spinexpo intends to develop, moving away from general trend directions based on colours and stories. The garments at the ‘SpinExclusive’ part of the trend area brought together a spinning mill, a knitwear manufacturer working on new machinery software and one stylist. It showed that knitwear manufacturers have to discover what is on offer, learn how to process the machine and what to expect from them. Many knitwear manufacturers were present in this area, from Fenix Hong Kong to Yanfan China; spinners included Consinee, Top Line, Zhongding, Yarns & Colors, Hubo, UPW, Best Leader, and stylists Paula Cheng, Steven Oo, Rory Longdon, Uki Lau, Iben Hoej and Felicity Brown.
Swatches from Rory Longdon featured techniques on a number of new software developments and completed the presentation. The swatches displayed by colour story were presented for the last time during this session, and will be replaced by a presentation based on type of yarns, functionality, in the same way as Spinexpo presented it in the active presentation. The former marketing area was transformed into the ‘spinners’ products orientation’ and presented the spinners’ own developments and new products, with a special focus on interesting novelties, coatings, blends and new fibres.
The fair also presented the ‘Knitted Room’, a project put forward by Yarns & Colors and Aussco, introducing its InDHouse project. The second part of the presentation was designed by Steven Oo and featured a bedroom and study room decorated with knitted and yarn constructions, with the help of Yanfan and Santoni. The idea was well-received. Woolmark presented its new products orientation with two seminars: the Wool Lab A/W 2016/17 and the latest innovations in Merino wool including Merino retract, wool denim jersey, wool denim knits, warp knits and mottled Merino.
www.spinexpo.com
